Ongoing criminalisation, human rights abuses and land grabbing

To: Jon Moeller, Procter & Gamble, CEO; Dirk Van de Put, Mondelēz, CEO; Michele Buck, Hershey’s, CEO; Steve Cahillane, Kellogg’s, CEO; Noel R. Wallace, Colgate-Palmolive, CEO; Alan Jope, Unilever, CEO; Ulf Mark Schneider, Nestlé, CEO; Ramon Laguarta, PepsiCo, CEO

CC: Client Items Discussion board; Client Items Discussion board Forest Optimistic Coalition

CC: Mary Lawlor, United Nations Particular Rapporteur on the scenario of Human Rights Defenders

As representatives from Indigenous Peoples, civil society, and community-based organizations all over the world, we the undersigned are writing to you relating to ongoing criminalization, human rights abuses, and land grabbing towards native farmers, land and environmental human rights defenders, and communities by your palm oil provider Astra Agro Lestari (AAL) and its subsidiary PT Mamuang in Central and West Sulawesi, Indonesia.

AAL is Indonesia’s second largest palm oil firm and provides Crude Palm Oil (CPO) by its mills to numerous client firms, together with Procter & Gamble, Hershey’s, Kellogg, Unilever, Mondelēz, Colgate-Palmolive, PepsiCo, and Nestlé, amongst others.

In March 2022, 5 Indigenous farmers and members of the Kailo Tado folks have been arrested by the Pasangkayu police in West Sulawesi based mostly on allegations made by PT Mamuang. The accusation was made by the corporate after members of the Kabuyu Neighborhood Alliance marched to PT Mamuang’s workplace in February 2022 in protest of the corporate’s sustained function in forcibly grabbing communities’ land, contributing to environmental destruction, negatively impacting communities’ livelihoods, and criminalizing land and environmental human rights defenders. The chief of the march was one of many 5 farmers arrested. Notably, two of the 5 farmers arrested weren’t current throughout the march.

That is solely the latest case of criminalization linked to AAL. Since 2017, WALHI/Associates of the Earth Indonesia has documented at the very least 10 circumstances of criminalization by AAL. In 2017, 4 farmers from Polanto Jaya village have been criminalized for harvesting palm oil fruit bunches from their very own lands, for which they held authorized Land Registration Certificates (SKPT ) and Freehold Certificates (SHM) demonstrating their possession. After a number of court docket hearings, all sides within the dispute was ordered to indicate documentation of their rights to the land. PT Mamuang failed to supply documentation of its authorized rights to the land, however the Pasangkayu District Court docket sentenced the 4 Polanto Jaya residents to jail for 4 to seven months.

In 2003, 107 farming households mobilized to defend their land once they discovered that PT Mamuang had planted oil palm outdoors the HGU concession alongside the Pasangkayu watershed which is lower than 50 meters from the sting of the watershed. Since then, the folks of Kaili Tado have been slowly occupying the oil palm land planted by PT Mamuang and managing the land round their space.

In 2010, following a number of years of compelled evictions and land grabbing by PT Mamuang, the corporate clashed with native communities over the harvesting of palm oil fruit on farmers’ lands. When native farmer Franz Hemsi stood up for his group, he was arrested and imprisoned for allegedly stealing from his personal land, which the corporate claimed as a part of their operations. In 2015, PT Mamuang despatched a gaggle of thugs to intimidate Hemsi and his household. In 2017, he filed a police report towards PT Mamuang and was subsequently detained for alleged theft and destruction of property. Hemsi was as soon as once more sentenced to jail, this time for 5 months and 7 days.

In April 2018, Hemsi contacted the Indonesian Nationwide Land Company to register his land in hopes of receiving a proper recognition of his rights. The Company discovered that the corporate had no authorized proper to function on Hemsi’s land. Regardless, in December 2018, at some point after his spouse gave beginning to their third little one, Hemsi was picked up by police and charged with theft. He was once more sentenced to 5 months in jail. In 2020, after Hemsi filed an attraction to the Indonesian Supreme Court docket, which stays pending, and met with AAL’s financiers in Europe, about half of the land grabbed by the corporate was returned.

Since PT Mamuang commenced palm oil operations in 1991, the corporate has been concerned in protracted land conflicts with native communities, accused of forcibly taking communities’ land with out their Free, Prior, Knowledgeable Consent (FPIC), criminalizing farmers and land and environmental defenders, and illegally occupying Indonesia’s Protected Forest Zone. The Indigenous Kaili Tado folks have been significantly negatively impacted by AAL and PT Mamuang’s operations. The Kaili Tado produce quite a lot of crops, together with rice, corn, cocoa, and coconuts, however when the corporate encroached on their ancestral lands, they misplaced entry to productive lands.

A March 2022 report documented how AAL and its subsidiaries working in Central and West Sulawesi are accountable for quite a few environmental, human rights, and governance violations, together with protracted land conflicts with native communities, violent land-grabbing abetted by Indonesian safety forces, and unlawful deforestation, forest encroachment, and soil, air, and water air pollution with adverse impacts to communities’ livelihoods. Along with a number of circumstances of criminalization of land and environmental human rights defenders, PT Mamuang was recognized as illegally occupying 255 hectares of Indonesia’s Protected Forest Zone, clearing forest and planting palm oil. Moreover, PT Mamuang is in violation of Authorities Regulation Quantity 38 of 2011 regarding Rivers, which states that palm oil firms might not plant within the riparian zone, which is 50 meters from the riverbank.

As mandated by worldwide frameworks such because the OECD Tips for Multinational Enterprises, client firms have a duty to deal with AAL’s flagrant and chronic violations of Indonesian regulation and worldwide human rights legal guidelines and requirements. Firms’ No Deforestation, No Peatland, and No Exploitation (NDPE) insurance policies and commitments require firms to take significant motion towards accountability and to make sure respect for human rights. We urge your organization and all members of the Client Items Discussion board to:

 Droop palm oil and palm oil kernel sourcing from AAL till conflicts between AAL subsidiaries and native communities have been resolved, land occupied by AAL subsidiaries with out consent has been restored to group possession, and compensation has been agreed upon and offered to affected farmers. Sourcing from AAL and its subsidiaries ought to solely resume upon full, clear and impartial verification that AAL’s operations meet NDPE necessities, together with documentation of proof of FPIC by all affected communities that consent to ongoing palm oil manufacturing on their lands; grievances have been redressed; treatment offered to impacted communities; and all legally required permits and licenses are so as.

 Undertake and publish complete noncompliance protocols that embrace clear thresholds for the suspension and termination of procurement from suppliers which have violated NDPE insurance policies. Noncompliance protocols ought to outline time-bound actions that should be taken so as to resume sourcing from noncompliant suppliers, and impartial verification to make sure that all actions taken are in compliance with nationwide legal guidelines, worldwide human rights legal guidelines and requirements, and NDPE necessities.

 Undertake and publish devoted human rights insurance policies and procedures making certain zero tolerance for violence, intimidation, homicide and criminalization of Human Rights Defenders, together with land and environmental defenders. These insurance policies should be developed with inputs from Human Rights Defenders and in accordance with finest practices outlined by the Zero Tolerance Initiative and worldwide human rights norms and uphold group land and useful resource rights, in addition to the fitting to Free Prior and Knowledgeable Consent (FPIC).

 Make sure that grievance redress mechanisms are in accordance with the UN Guiding Ideas on Enterprise and Human Rights and clear and accessible to impacted communities and shield land and environmental human rights defenders from violence and intimidation.

There isn’t a justification for permitting, enabling, and perpetuating criminalization, repression and human rights abuses within the manufacturing of your organization’s client items merchandise. We name for an finish to those practices, at present.